Criminal Justice Magazine
Spring 2003
Volume 18 Number 1
Race, the Death Penalty, and Wrongful Convictions
By Karen F. Parker, Mari A. DeWees, and Michael L. Radelet
Racial discrimination has long been recognized as a part of the American criminal justice system. Studies of racial bias have tended to focus on the flaws and failures within the legal process itself, rather than on extralegal factors that may also be involved. But just as the literature has definitively established that it is true that racial discrimination affects everything from arrest to voir dire to sentencing, so is it true that racial discrimination has origins and explanations outside of the legal system that contribute to the failures within that system. In this article, we investigate and expand upon our previous efforts to offer a structural explanation of racial discrimination’s impact upon the legal system. (See Karen F. Parker et al., Racial Bias and Conviction of the Innocent, in Wrongly Convicted: When Justice Fails 114 (Saundra Westervelt & John Humphrey eds. 2001).) To do so, we specifically examine the nexus among wrongful convictions, capital cases, and Hubert Blalock’s power-threat hypothesis. Further, we provide a snapshot of the changing perceptions of the American public on issues of wrongful conviction and capital punishment, suggesting that these changes may well affect the political and judicial actions that will influence racial discrimination within our justice system in years to come.
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Our study provides evidence of a racial bias in the operations of the criminal justice system, particularly in regard to the death penalty. As in the previous studies reviewed here, we find racial disparities in wrongful convictions among death row cases. Moreover, we also find that cultural, political, and economic differences among regions of the country may well factor into the relationship between race and wrongful convictions. Specifically, we posit that blacks are more likely to face wrongful conviction in the South than whites and other racial and ethnic groups. Additional research is undoubtedly needed to better understand the nexus between race and wrongful conviction within the larger structural context, and we urge scholars to consider regional differences that produce racial discrimination and unequal treatment under the law.